Box Turtle Bulletin
News and commentary about the anti-gay lobby“Now you must raise your children up in a world where that union of man and box turtle is on the same legal footing as man and wife…”
News and commentary about the anti-gay lobbyJune 19th, 2012
Juneteenth celebration in Richmond, Virginia, 1905.
Today is Juneteenth, also known as Freedom Day or Emancipation Day, an important day of African-American heritage commemorating the announcement of the abolition of slavery in the state of Texas in 1865. Although President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation in 1862 to take effect on January 1, 1863, its implementation didn’t reach the southern Confederate States still under rebel control. In 1865 after the South’s surrender at Appomattox, the Union Army began implementing the Proclamation. On June 18, Gen. Gordon Granger and 2,000 federal troops arrived in Galveston, Texas to take control of the state, and the following day, the general stood on the balcony of Galbeston’s Ashton Villa and read out General Order Number 3:
The people of Texas are informed that, in accordance with a proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free. This involves an absolute equality of personal rights and rights of property between former masters and slaves, and the connection heretofore existing between them becomes that between employer and hired labor. The freedmen are advised to remain quietly at their present homes and work for wages. They are informed that they will not be allowed to collect at military posts and that they will not be supported in idleness either there or elsewhere.
The celebration of Juneteenth spread across Texas immediately following 1865, and made its way across the old south through rest of the nineteenth century. But as African-Americans left the south during the Great Migration to the factories of the north in the twentieth century, Juneteenth very nearly died out. But it experienced a resurgence during the Civil Rights era of the 1960s, and the holiday received renewed interest in the 1990s. It is currently recognized either as a state holiday or as a state observance in 41 states.
TODAY’S AGENDA:
“Call Me Kuchu” Reception and Screening: San Francisco, CA. American Jewish World Service, in association with San Francisco’s Frameline LGBT FIlm Festival, will hold a cocktail reception for documentary filmmakers Malika Zouhali-Worrall and Katherine Fairfax Wright, whose film Call Me Kuchu follows the efforts of slain Ugandan LGBT-advocate David Kato to promote tolerance for the country’s gay community.
The reception will take place on late this afternoon from 5:00 to 6:15 p.m. at the Bisou French Bistro, 2367 Market St. Advance tickets are not needed for the reception, but organizers request that you RSVP Sprinza Kats at skatz@ajws.org or call 415.593.3297.
The film itself will be shown this evening at 7:00 p.m. at the Castro Theater, as part of the Frameline36 San Francisco International Film Festival. Tickets for this evening’s showing can be purchased here.
If you know of something that belongs on the agenda, please send it here. Don’t forget to include the basics: who, what, when, where, and URL (if available).
And feel free to consider this your open thread for the day. What’s happening in your world?
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Charles
June 19th, 2012
According to my sources, Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation issued on January 1, 1863 immediately freed the slaves in the states that were only in rebellion against the United States of America. It was not until January 1865 and the passing of the 13th Amendment to the United States that slavery was outlawed throughout the United States and it took effect in December 1865. Lee surrendered to Grant on April 7, 1865. Some confederate forces continued to fight, the war did not come to an immediate end.
Hue-Man
June 19th, 2012
Centennial celebrations are highly artificial but I’ll make an exception for Alan Turing’s 100th birthday on Saturday. Not surprisingly the BBC’s website has resources and links to his unbelievable accomplishments in computing and code-breaking. I happened to listen to this BBC World Service “Discovery” broadcast this morning on CBC Radio Overnight (the audio isn’t geo-blocked). http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00t6kkg
Charles
June 19th, 2012
Hue-Man, to remember the life of tragic life of Alan Turing is something every school child should be taught. He code breaking operation at Bletchley Park saved countless Allied lives in the European theater of war in WWII. Then because he was homosexual and caught, tried and sentenced by a British Court to be chemically castration is almost unbelievable in the context of today. You would almost think that he had been captured by the Nazis and sent to be experimented on by Dr. Josef Mengele at Auschwitz.
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